Gone for Good Again
by season5girl
Summary: On the night when Harry went to save his god father, before they in turn saved him, Sirius and Remus were only having supper. RR, slash, little angsty


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Disclaimer:** Not mine. I don'ts owns 'em. I do, however, have some right to these particular words, presented in this particular way. Everything else is J.K. Rowling's, WB's, and Scholastic's. As well as anyone else who makes valid claim to them. Righty-o. Oh, the title comes from Eve 6's 'Here's to the Night' 

**Rating**: PG, possibly PG-13, which would be...um... T in the new rating system!

**Warning**: Slash.

**Pairing**: Remus/Sirius

**Summary**: It's the night the children rush to the Department of Mysteries, but we're in Grimmauld Place, where Sirius and Remus are making a last supper of sorts. Angsty, but I like it.

**A/N**: I don't have the fifth book with me right now (ohh...I miss it), so if some of the smaller facts are off (i.e. it's a wooden table, chair, bench, whatnot, not a stone one!) please forgive me, and I'll correct any errors as soon as I can.

Enjoy, me pretties!

**Gone for Good Again**

I suppose that it makes sense now, after the fact. But most things do, so it is an admittance with little weight or merit.

It must have happened when we were in the attic. That seems, in retrospect, the only reasonable time.

Although I had told him before we left the house that my intuition sped sideways, like a broken train, and warned me in its muted, pressing way that something was not quite right about this, more wrong, even, than what had already been made obvious to us, from the letter.

A letter.

I suppose, too, that there have been a lot of joys and tragedies, accidents and adventures, begun by the receiving, or sending, of a letter.

I would not know which ours would bring, until after the fact.

I would know none of this, until after supper.

* * *

"It's steak," Remus answered, "You like steak," 

He stood by the counter, shifting and arranging the plates and silverware with minimal fuss, and achieving far more than Sirius would have with the red chunks of raw meat.

"I do, that I do," Sirius was at the table, tipping his chair dangerously back against the wall, and tossing an apple into the air, making it levitate in front of him like a small, red, stemmed planet.

They fell away into the dimly lit comfort of silence, like a March sky, when the stars no longer tremble with cold, nor yet spread passed their confines as in the hot months of summer, trying to cool themselves, or heat the rest of the night unsparingly, but the time in between, when they simply are –if ever they are simple- clothed in a quiet white moisture, which makes them faint, friendly companions.

Remus rolled his eyes a moment later, when the apple floated round passed his ear, into his line of sight. It did a little up and down dance in front of his face.

"Be careful, or I'm libel to bite it in my hunger," He teased.

"Ha! Think you're fast, do you, Lupin? I could have this little guy back at my side before you open your mouth," Sirius boasted.

Remus looked over his shoulder at his companion, squinting his eyes in a wordless acceptance of a challenge which had only been implied.

Slowly, like a subtler form of magic, Sirius face bloomed into a wide grin, hungry for this, the smallest of adventures, to begin. Hungry for more than steaks and apples and the quotidian.

He dropped his chair forward again, so it stood on all four feet, and he sat a little straighter, raising his wand arm high, to have a clear shot at the apple.

Remus didn't prepare visibly, simply turned again to face the apple. The prey.

He closed his eyes, and smiled, and when he looked again, he didn't see the apple the way it had been a moment before, a red and yellow fruit, a thing to be eaten. He saw a target, as clearly as if someone had painted circles of white and black, all falling into each other, all in love with the idea of guidance.

Well, it did, it guided him, as Sirius waited, watching for some sign that Remus was about to make his move, and lunge forward. A tensing of muscles, a slackening of them, the anticipation realized in what…? It could be anything, this sign for which Sirius watched, but he was sure, quite sure, that when it came, he would see it.

In his mind, Remus pictured how the apple would taste, first his teeth would puncture through the skin to meet the pale flesh underneath, and then the juices would pour down his canines like blood from the hunt, and the rabbit would be dead and his, and he would take it to his mate, and the black dog would be grateful and loving.

As Remus opened his eyes, although he did not remember having closed them, he heard Sirius exclaiming amazements behind him and felt the pleasant, but alien weight of the apple between his teeth.

He took it from his mouth, but his hand shook; he steadied himself on the counter.

"Bloody hell, I should've known better," Sirius was saying, his tone half bitterness at his failure, and half pride for his lover.

Remus heard the tone and turned to make it all better, ignoring his own rattled state.

He tossed the apple unexpectedly at Sirius, who caught it deftly in his hand.

"You did well," Remus smiled, turning back to the counter and taking the two steaks from where they had sat for this time, frying on the stove. He put one on each of the bright china plates laid out.

"You did better," Sirius said, but there was less disappointment this time.

"The food is ready," Remus said, moving the plates to the long, antiqued table, which stood in the room as obviously misplaced and intruding a reminder of the house's superiority, as an Arabian horse placed beside a carousel.

As his dish came before him, Sirius reached out, and put his hand across Remus', and said again, with an intensity which brushed Remus as would a warm wind, "You did well,"

Remus let out a shudder of a breath and leant down into Sirius, whose arms had sprung open at the first sign of movement. He wrapped him tightly in an embrace which had only recently come back into both of their lives.

"I'm not sure what I did," Remus was saying, pressed against Sirius' chest, "It felt like an animal,"

"It doesn't matter, Moony, not in the slightest," Sirius kissed the top of his head, and moved his hand through his hair, "You're beautiful, and you're Remus, and there is nothing to worry about,"

Remus gripped his shirt, and inhaled his scent, of skin and soap and sorrow.

* * *

Although the parting of bodies had been hard, at first, Remus was never one to be shaken for long, or to show it, and he soon righted himself from Sirius' embrace, and returned to his side of the table, weak in the head and heavy in his heart.

Beneath the table he lay his foot along side Sirius'. And between them, then and for the rest of their meal the air was tautly strung, but affectionate.

Studying Remus across the table, whose eyes were fixed down towards his food, and his knife cutting the bloody steak into reasonable pieces, bringing them to his mouth without thought of movement, or care, was difficult for Sirius to watch.

There was the pressing fear in the back of his mind, which said now as it had said since he had first learnt of Remus' lycanthropy, telling him that there were parts to his friend, aspects of his nature, which Sirius would never reach. To which Sirius could never belong.

He swallowed the remnants of his last mouthful, although his plate was no more than half empty, and lifted up his glass, which was crystal and tall, and made for wine, not water.

He cleared his throat, and buried the voice inside, and told himself that it wasn't true. Remus confirmed it as he raised his eyes, for within them was the nature of themselves, and was all that Sirius had needed, to reinstate his confidence, and to convince him, for the time, that he was more Remus' than his own, that he did belong. He did.

"I would like to make a toast," He said, and Remus smiled, "To tonight, which has turned into such a beautiful, clear evening…and…ah…and I'm only good at toasts when I'm full of bravado, Moony, and I'm not right now," He admitted.

"I'm not because there isn't any room in me for that foolishness…I want to toast us, Remus. Because it seems like it's been an awfully long time, since I last told you what you meant,"

Here Remus stood, although he had been tempted to remain seated, and hear what his hunger longed to hear, the words which fed him, which he had gone without for most of his life.

"You don't need to say anything, Sirius, I understand. We both have always understood, and sometimes I wonder…if unnecessary words would mar us…we don't need them. We have what we need," He raised his goblet to Sirius', and as the crystal connected, it made the sound of a thousand glass snowflakes falling to earth, some shattering and some remaining whole, to be a better symbol of the story of their fall. It was similar, it was beautiful, but it hurt.

And at the same moment, the owl was sent out, urgently.

Sirius and Remus held each other's eye, as they lifted their goblets of water to their lips, and drank.

"I want to go upstairs with you," Sirius said, after they'd swallowed, and his voice was pleading, and wonderfully familiar.

Remus replaced his glass onto its spot on the table.

Sirius was only four steps away. Remus took two.

He was met halfway by the lips of a man who was much withered, and tired, but reviving. He had gained weight, and cut his hair, and though he rubbed his arms at night, in bed, trying to wipe at scars which itched as they healed, it was little matter, for he recovered some with everyday.

He would not ever be entirely himself again, but some things are not simply a matter of wishing, it happens now and then that there are badges we wear, despite our trying to remove them and return to who we had been, before.

We stain, but after awhile, forget to notice anymore.

Sirius made a sound in his throat like the ecstasy of a man seeing his last sunset.

Their kiss was pleasant, and long, and satisfied a lust which hung between them, and had for two months or more, an emotion which did not seem to dissipate for long, as it tried to make up for the lack of their years together.

It was a kiss where their tongues met, and Sirius groaned, but it was not what either of them needed.

The owl was young, grown of brown feathers and dark eyes, with which he sought their house, a black shape amidst the blacker shades of night. It was below him, now, just a drop in the cold, and he lowered his wings, and went for it, like a shot of sparks in the summer sky.

It was decided, then. They pulled apart, Sirius moved his hand from Remus' shoulder to his cheek, and knew what he wanted.

Remus shut his eyes, and placed his open palm along the warm back of Sirius' hand.

"Moony,"

That was the voice of a child, a boy who had the bravado to make a thousand speeches; it was the voice which Sirius had used the first time he called Remus by name.

Remus opened his mouth, to speak or to laugh, we never find out, but he was met by the kiss of Sirius, the old Sirius, the boy who was made up of ideals and ego, the new Sirius, who was filled with years, and splitting at the seams.

But it was the same kiss that he had given Remus twenty years ago, in the fifth year dorms, when the moon had been bright but not full, and the evening was neither young nor old. That instant existed and was captured, under glass and in frozen motion; now, in Grimmauld Place, they pulled apart, and though Remus wanted to cry out for the frailty of this moment here and now, Sirius felt, with a hard, hot twist, his heart begin again, as though it had never stopped at all.

Though their supper remained only half eaten, Sirius' steak chopped into large, unwieldy chunks and Remus' cut neatly into bite-sized pieces, which lay in friendly commune beside the asparagus, although it waited for their return, it would never see it.

The door which led out of the low, stone kitchen was open, inviting, almost pleading with them, to retire early to their room.

Once, Sirius' hands had been rough, scraped and callused from playing Quidditch with James, and handling unstable Dungbombs moments before deployment. But now, as they touched his cheek, Remus realized how soft they had become since Azkaban, and since Sirius had come to Grimmauld Place again, for there was nothing to toughen them

He did nothing which would callus skin.

"Shall we?" He asked into Remus' mouth.

His voice was husky and low, and the air which both of them exhaled seemed very hot. Too hot.

But what he truly meant was 'can we?'

His voice was an invitation to come with him, the same promise in it as there would be in finding a door to another world, and the wolf responded, as Remus knew he always would. As Remus, too, always would.

But it was also a question, perhaps because the years which were between them had been so many. Sirius always asked, with the assurance that Remus had never rejected him, not in any way which had hurt for long before being mended.

He heard the disrupted nature of Remus' breathe, harsher and shallower than normal.

He felt the smooth cheeks beneath his hands, the ends of pale hair brushing the backs of his fingers. It felt like recollection, and it felt real, drowning him in memories which had lived a generation ago, and bringing up the sharp clarity of everything which surrounded them now. Here.

It hit him like a wave of clear air, this account of all things.

He exhaled as Remus closed his eyes.

Remus had felt it, too. But rather than a map of passed events and touching of the present, it felt to him like the sad, sudden ending of a story which had promised to never end at all.

All at once, three things happened.

Although in the moment, it had seemed different to each, and if pressed for a retelling, the two there would have come up with quite varying perspectives, and though it is akin to calling the sky and sea and the newly born, moonlit snow all just 'blue', as if that could capture it all handily in a word (it cannot), despite it, we will say, _this_ is what happened:

Remus smiled a little, and moved the word through his mouth like a flower fallen into the sea, one upon which all the world depended.

He said, "Yes,"

A tear, uncalled and startling, rolled down his cheek, and across Sirius' hand; Sirius looked at it.

And the owl tapped against the window.

* * *

"What does it say?"

"It says…he went to find you," Remus looked up briefly from the letter.

"Me! But I've been here! All day; all week; all month!"

"Calm down,"

"Calm down? He's got Harry _trapped_, Remus. Because of me! Because he went to save _me_!"

Remus paused again from reading the letter, only half listening to Sirius.

"I should go to them," He said and immediately began moving for his coat.

"What about me?" Sirius asked, half eager beneath his fear.

"Sirius," Remus turned, and sighed, long ago tired of reminding Sirius of his promise to stay in hiding.

"Oh, no," Sirius was disbelieving, "No, you can't be telling me to stay, when he wouldn't even be in any danger if it weren't for me,"

Remus hesitated, holding his old grey coat in his arms, and quite seriously, said, "This is exactly the kind of situation Dumbledore was worried about, the one against which he warned all of us. There is no debate here. You _must_ stay, Sirius. It's too soon to leave."

"Dumbledore didn't know that _this_ was going to happen! He didn't know Harry would be in danger," Sirius shouted, helplessness and frustration fueling his voice.

There was a pause, no longer than a breath.

"I'm going," He reached for his broom.

Remus took a step towards him.

"Are you sure you aren't doing this because everyone else is out there, fighting, while you're here? Are you sure, Sirius, that this is for Harry, only Harry, and not for yourself?" Remus demanded.

Sirius held his tired, fading broom, splintered at the brush, by his side, and took several steps 'til he was standing just by the door.

He swallowed, and looked up at Remus, who still stood in the middle of the large kitchen.

"Does it matter why, if it saves Harry's life?"

Their dinner was still on the table, steak pierced by Remus' fork, quite forgotten.

The owl had gone, leaving the window unfastened half way, letting the cool expanse of night into the comfort of the room.

Sirius looked at all this, and then up to his lover's eyes, yellower than normal, like the wolf's.

"It's too soon," Remus said again. But it was different, this time. The words weren't holding Sirius to a promise he'd made Dumbledore, and though the end of the sentence was unsaid, taken away by disbelief and love, Sirius knew it still, could tell by the way Remus stood – too stiff, too straight.

It's too soon … to lose you again.

But there was freedom in the night, and his god-son was in danger. And besides, he had other promises to keep; one of which was not to leave Remus again, no matter what.

He believed in his word, and in his fate, and so said with an honest conviction:

"Let me go, Moony. Nothing's going to happen,"

Remus swallowed.

There was a second of hesitation, wherein the dead air became fuller than a hundred conversations.

He felt his eyes dampen, but despite it, and even while within the spaces of his body the quick, urgent ringing of a bell called out like the saddest of alarms, the ones which no one heeds, he felt the words come up from low in him where truth goes beyond truth, and all the things we call and name as good or bad aren't anything so human, with tags and titles, but are a meaning and completeness which steals your heart, indescribable and consoling, and he answered because of this, despite himself:

"Hurry, then,"

* * *

He wanted to believe it would be fine, but the warm house was dreamlike, and no reality could form a focused line within one's head, nothing could be true, only life as it is everyday, with sunshine and dishes, dirty shoes and coarse reality, evident in the way his hair falls, and the brush strokes of every portrait, always ageless and always dying.

But the night said hisses too clear for dream-speak, and they woke Remus as he rushed into the yard, his heart hammering to break out, and be a red proof that all was not well, that the night was too cold and alive for dreaming.

He wanted to stop the black clad figure in front of him, whose strides were so purposeful and free, his arm swinging beside him, wand out; he would have stopped him, but Sirius sniffed the air, and despite his horror and fear for their god-son, he sighed, in relief, the sound of a resurrected man, who had moved for too many days with his eyes shut, and who had thought that all hope was really, this time, gone.

* * *

"Not the brooms," Remus said, feeling his stomach lurch already, at the site of Sirius' speed damaged Mercury 201.

"Let's take the bike, then, it's faster," Sirius suggested, and went to the shed, to throw open it's doors.

Remus nodded, with distaste, never having been fond of traveling by flying motorbike.

The weather had turned against them, remaining clear, but becoming sharp and cold, although, in truth it made moves against no one, and acted in its own manner, which is surreal to us, but to it natural.

Once on their way, in the wind and sky, Remus pressed forward into Sirius' rough wool back and asked against the close skin of his ear, "Do you think we'll make it?"

But there was too much in the question, and Sirius had no answer.

* * *

They arrived with the same clarity of life and feeling of hard, tangible reality with which they had been dancing all night, but to Remus, everything after the ride to the Ministry was blurred by the effort of looking back at it.

They had arrived, and it had been dark, no lights on in the Muggle street, but up several blocks, where a large stone building glowed like a fire trapped by rings of metal – the grey lines which were the separation of the floors.

They looked to each other, and then up to the Ministry, against which the sky framed itself, a cold blue outlining the mighty building, which was large from both it's size and the power it held within.

They went towards the entrance, and slipped down the halls of marble, and dark, quiet alcoves, until they met the Order, who stood around a great, golden fountain, all talking hurriedly, all worried with their wands drawn out.

Remus and Sirius joined their ranks.

Remus looked up at him, and felt the whole of his being sink, with the falling realization of a vertigo truth. He choked back a sob of understanding. But the moment had come and left him again so quickly, that it seemed half-way to being a dream.

Sirius looked down at him, and though he was pale, and sober, his eyes were alive.

* * *

As one, the group traveled lower, into the pits of the Ministry, the empty places where no more than an hour before, five children had made their way, led on by an urgency of their own.

* * *

They went through rooms against which Remus guarded himself, for their true meanings were unknown, and no one in their gathering sought the answers. For inside a room which held an egg in suspended life forever, there also was a man, trapped within the same machine, grotesque and disturbing, neither man nor child, nor, perhaps, alive.

They followed the damage, like white markers in a forest, left behind to guide them.

It wound, in and out, through half a dozen spaces, dark and empty, or too full for any of them to truly take note of what they saw. Too much golden light, too many trinkets, and too little time.

When they had countered several dozens curses, and moved passed the dark, still shapes of Death Eaters who had met them, sadly, in their search, when Sirius had sworn low in his voice, demanding 'where is he' of no one, but still of something which he felt must be accountable for what was happening, and when it seemed they had searched through all of the rooms, and no more were left to find, they came upon the last door, standing tall and empty, one beside which Remus felt immeasurable small.

* * *

He and Sirius were neither the first, nor the last. They entered the chamber in the middle of the pack, an unspoken, unnoticed compromise. Sirius wanting to rush forward, blindly, into the heart of the pain, and Remus, dimly aware of a dark honesty, which caused him a small hesitation.

* * *

The room led down in rows of stone seating, to one platform in the centre, upon which stood a half-hoop, hung in the middle with fabric.

And there was Harry, and Longbottom. Good god, even those one would have thought safe, were here, in the cold chamber at the heart of London.

And then everything was a battle, and Remus, well taught in spells and fighting, noticed little else for some time, but his defense and his attack, and the children's whereabouts.

Once, he glanced to Sirius, Sirius who would be flying if he had the power, Sirius who was within a hand's stretch of being free. He was almost smiling.

And then Remus noticed nothing else but battle, for several long, lost moments.

* * *

The arch was as beautiful as any in a Roman city, but being made of body and weight, and of last moments and not of stone and power and ancient men's effort, gave a sadness to it which startled the eyes and broke the breath.

Remus could not save him, and did not catch his eye, for Sirius was looking up, as though he had caught sight of the moon, more beautiful than he had ever seen it before, as though it were there for him, full and dazzling in white and crystalline, just above him, saying something, calling him home.

When the veil swung shut, he had wanted to run through it, and follow this time, when he had never been able to follow before.

But he saw Harry, and Harry was screaming, calling for his god-father, and he was young, only fifteen. Remus could not bring himself to leave Harry, and instead went to his side, and said words that fell into him like empty chords of song, and came up to the air again, in a wave of disbelief and sorrow, that made his voice break at it's centre, and therefore made the truth seem all the more real:

"He's gone, Harry,"

* * *

Grimmauld Place was not his home, and yet his plate sat half empty on the large wooden table, just across from Sirius'.

He shut the door behind him, and stepped into the kitchen as a stranger to a mourning house. There was no one to falsely comfort, and no heroes to save him. He was too much aware of the sound of his own footsteps, which were soft and tired on the stone floor.

He heard something, but it was not the Order, and it was not his heart. And though it was probably the wind, hitting grey branches against the windows, or running giddy races around the eaves, he thought it was a voice, saying something which he couldn't hear, which made no sense.

He shut his eyes to listen, and waited for it to speak again.

It had said amongst its hidden phrases, words which struck the wolf in his stomach, and felt so familiar in their strangeness, that he would have gasped, had he not been silent to hear.

But after a moment passed with nothing but the muted still of an empty house, he opened his eyes again, and slowly crossed the room.

He was going to bed; and he knew that he would be constantly listening, in case, but that those times of maybes and hushed nights when all he did was strain to hear, and wait, were not tonight. Not this night.

He doused the kitchen light, and shut its door behind him.

He would leave the dirty dishes till tomorrow.

* * *

**A/N**: Well...? I hope you liked it. It's a little depressing, maybe? Does it seem a little stilted? I was trying to make the whole Ministry scene thing shorter, because it's blurred in Remus' memory and we're seeing things from his perspective there. Anyway!

It could be read along with 'What I Didn't Know', but I in NO way wrote them as companion pieces, therefore their basic facts and such may be conflicting. May also be read while playing Ayumi Hamasaki – Forgiveness, 'cause it seems to go, oddly enough!

Constructive criticism is welcome, as are flames, as is anything any of you would like to say! Also, if anyone can help me, I can't seem to figure out how to make breaks in text to seperate chapters! Urgh, nothing seems to work, hence the weird ruler inserts in this fic!  
But, please do review...become an R 'n R mastah! Thanks for reading!

Happy belated birthday to N!


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